The Basement Wolf

Chapter 8: Dinner with the Devil

Sandra

The restaurant was quiet—too quiet for her liking. Dim golden lights glowed against dark wood, soft jazz humming in the background. Couples whispered over wine glasses. Everything smelled of expensive whiskey and roasted meat. A place chosen for intimacy. And control.

His control.

Sandra adjusted the collar of her black blouse, fingers brushing the scar along her wrist. A reminder of shackles that had eaten her life away. She should have walked out the moment she saw the flicker in Bradley’s green eyes when he held that door open for her. That look wasn’t curiosity. It was possession in its rawest form.

But she stayed.

Because she needed what he knew.

Her gaze slid to him across the table. Crisp white shirt, sleeves rolled up, veins corded under tan skin. No tie. Top button undone. A predator disguised as a gentleman.

“So…” Bradley’s voice was low, smooth as aged whiskey. “You don’t strike me as the social-service type.”

Her spine stiffened, her wolf baring teeth inside her. “Excuse me?”

“That story you fed me back at the office.” His smirk was lazy, but his eyes gleamed like sharpened steel. “Social workers don’t risk their necks in locked-down schools. They don’t move like you do. And they sure as hell don’t carry that… edge.”

Sandra’s breath snagged. For a second, she considered lying again. Spinning another web. But his tone—flat, certain—told her it would be pointless. He already knew.

Her nails dug crescents into her palm under the table. She hated this. Hated being the one cornered, exposed.

“There were no social services,” she said finally, her voice quiet, cold. “There never were.”

Bradley didn’t flinch. Didn’t even blink. Just waited, like a man who knew the truth was coming and would savor every word.

Sandra’s throat burned as the confession tore free. “The children… my children… weren’t born from love. They were bred. Sold like… cattle. For alliances, for power. Ten years locked in a hellhole, forced to—” Her voice cracked, and she bit down hard, tasting blood. She wouldn’t cry. Not here. Not in front of him. “And when they were done with me, they planned to kill me. Only I ran first.”

Silence. Heavy, suffocating. The clink of glasses from another table felt obscene in its normalcy.

Bradley leaned back slowly, the leather groaning under his weight. His gaze swept her like a blade—cold, assessing—but there was something else there now. Something raw.

“And now you want them back.” It wasn’t a question.

Sandra met his eyes, fury simmering under her skin. “I will burn the world to bring them home.”

Bradley’s jaw tightened. His fingers tapped once against the stem of his glass before stilling. “Then we’re on the same page.”

Her brows knitted. “What do you mean?”

“I’ll help you,” he said simply.

Just like that. No hesitation. No demand for proof. No moral outrage.

Her stomach knotted. People didn’t offer help for free. Not in this world. Not in hers. “And what do you want in return?”

Bradley’s smile was slow. Dark. Dangerous. “Not money.”

The air thickened between them, pulsing with heat and something far deadlier.

Sandra forced her voice steady. “Then what?”

His gaze dropped briefly—to her mouth, to the pale line of her throat—before locking back on her eyes, green fire meeting icy blue. “I want you. Not for a night. Not for a distraction. For as long as this takes. Full access. No walls. No lies.”

The words slammed into her like a physical blow. Her wolf snarled, claws scraping at the cage of her ribs. Instinct screamed to run. But another part—dark, reckless—leaned in.

“You think I’m a toy you can buy with promises?” Her voice was a low growl now, sharp enough to slice.

Bradley’s smirk didn’t falter. If anything, it deepened. “No. I think you’re fire in human skin. And I don’t want to buy you.” His tone dropped, rich and lethal. “I want to burn with you.”

Her pulse hammered so loud it drowned the music. She hated him for saying that. Hated how her body betrayed her, heat coiling low in her belly, making her thighs tense under the table.

Sandra forced a laugh—a bitter, broken sound. “You’re insane.”

“Maybe,” Bradley said, his voice silk and steel. “But I’m also your best shot at tearing down the bastards who did this to you.”

Her breath hitched. And she knew, deep down, he was right.

Because Bradley wasn’t just a detective. There was something else in his eyes, something that whispered of secrets he hadn’t shared. Secrets sharp enough to cut through kingdoms.

And for the first time, she wondered if he was human at all.

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Bradley

He watched the storm flicker across her face—rage, grief, defiance—and it hit him like a punch to the ribs. Goddess, she was beautiful in her fury. Beautiful in her brokenness. A wolf who’d been caged so long she forgot what it felt like to bare her teeth.

And yet… he saw the other truth. The one she’d never admit.

She was tired.

Tired of running. Tired of bleeding for ghosts. Tired of carrying a war on her shoulders with no one to share the weight.

Bradley wanted to be that someone. Needed to be. Even if it destroyed them both.

But first—he had to lie.

“You want to know what I am?” he asked softly, leaning forward, letting his breath brush her ear. “Just a man, Sandra. No claws. No curse. No secrets.”

The words tasted like ash.

Because he was lying through his teeth.

The curse still burned in his blood, coiled like a viper, waiting for the moment she learned the truth. Waiting to rip her from him like every other soul who ever dared love him.

But not yet. Not until she was too deep to walk away.

Sandra’s laugh was sharp, disbelieving. “A man who kisses like sin and drags women into closets during school lockdowns?”

Bradley’s grin was pure predator. “Only the interesting ones.”

She rolled her eyes, but color bloomed high on her cheeks. Her walls were cracking. He could feel it.

“Why?” she whispered suddenly, and there it was—the question that gutted him. “Why help me?”

He could have said a hundred things. Duty. Justice. Revenge. But none of them were true. None of them were enough.

So he told her the one truth he could bear to share.

“Because the second I saw you,” he said, voice rough, “I knew I’d never survive if I let someone else fight beside you.”

Her lips parted. Her breath caught. And for a moment—just a sliver of eternity—he thought she’d let him in. Thought she’d close that last inch and taste the lie on his tongue.

Instead, she leaned back, eyes glittering like shards of frost. “Careful, Detective,” she murmured. “You sound like a man about to lose his soul.”

Bradley’s smile curved slow, dark, wicked. “Sweetheart…” His hand brushed her wrist under the table, a whisper of heat. “What makes you think I had one to begin with?”